2 TRANSACTIONS LIVERPOOL BIOLOGICAL SOCIETY. 



considerable scope in one department of biological research, 

 when it forcibly occurred to me that in this year of our 

 Queen's Jubilee no theme could be more appropriate, or 

 possibly more popular, than a review of the advances in 

 biological science during the past sixty years known as 

 the Victorian Era. I therefore decided upon this very 

 fruitful subject — a subject which the more it is looked 

 into the vaster it becomes, and I cannot pretend, in an 

 hour, to touch upon more than the most prominent of the 

 many advances for which this age will be famous. 



It would be a curious task to ascertain how many 

 comparisons have been this year drawn in every branch 

 of industry, science, literature, and art, between the pre- 

 sent and the past, showing, at any rate, as regards industry 

 and science, advances far vaster than could have been 

 possible at any former similar period of time. In view of 

 all the brilliant and unprecedented achievements in physi- 

 cal science which have occurred during the Queen's reign 

 it would perhaps be rash to claim as great a development 

 in biological science. But it is doubtless profoundly true 

 to say that in no other department of knowledge has any 

 theory or discovery advanced or made during the Victorian 

 Era so affected the thoughts and beliefs of mankind in all 

 sorts of ways, to such an extent as has the Darwinian 

 doctrine of Evolution — the crowning biological truth of 

 our time. And it would be equally safe to assert that 

 very few names in any sphere of life will be more cherished 

 and remembered as a part of the century itself than that 

 of Charles Darwin [Plate I.] who, by his genius and 

 perseverance, was able to bring about this revolution in 

 the thoughts of his age. Let us take a glance back at 

 the position of natural history in 1837. Cuvier [Plate II.] , 

 the greatest naturalist of his time, had died five years 

 before, soon after the completion of the second edition, 



